…around with Photoshop – courtesy of Frau B. and Miz Lumina, my benefactors in many ways, and most recently, donors of Lizz’s former lap-top which just happens to have Photoshop on it!!! 🙂

My first effort with this new toy is a white lily from the Bridge of Flowers. I hadn’t shown you this previously because the blossom was several days old and had accumulated some dirt. But with a few rudimentary tools from the Photoshop Bag-O-Tricks, it looks like this:

Dinner in the dooryard tonight. Leftovers from a long list, lightening the fridge, with fresh touches from the garden. Curries, salsas, chicken and ribs, refried succotash with local corn, implausibly sweet and spicy. The light fading, the fire holding back the night as crickets and cicadas call forth the half-moon and stars.

It’s beautiful out here, warmed by the fire, cooled by a gentle breeze, a confused margin tracing a wavering curve up the side of my face.

Yawning, stretching, I say goodnight and reluctantly retire to my second floor bedroom; five o’clock comes early for this boy.

At the window I fidget with the fan, then notice my housemate Holly, still by the fire, perhaps contemplating a bit of her home-made peach and basil ice cream. I grab my camera and set up for a thirty second exposure; it looks like this:

Flames flicker, prayer flags flutter, and I’m off to dream the dreams of summer.

My job, highway and bridge layout, ranges from yawns, generally plentiful during the more mundane aspects of rural road surveys, to screams, which can come fast and furiously when in the throes of building a big, complicated bridge.

I’m presently wrestling with a monster, a disintegrating concrete span which looms in a great curve over an iron railroad bridge which in turn spans the concrete channel of the Hoosic river in its transit of the city of North Adams. It’s a virtual Escher’s World of crumbling concrete pillars being “resurfaced” (yeah, and good luck with that! ) and redecked with new steel beams and a new concrete deck.

We’re at the point now of setting the beams on the east side (Stage II) and they are, you guessed it, RED:

The iron workers scurry about up there seemingly unphased; I, on the other hand, move with a great deal of care and caution, much to their amusement:

That’s not me, but you get the idea – and it gets a good bit higher by the time it crosses the railroad tracks.

I’ll be spending the better part of the next few weeks walking the steel, with the spaces between the beams being gradually filled in with “pans” for the upcoming concrete pours.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, that is. It’s a really unique museum about half an hour west of here, offering some of the largest galleries in the country, making it ideal for the massive installation pieces which seem to be currently in vogue.

Susan and I went there this past Sunday to see the Petah Coyne sculpture show and Leonard Nimoy’s portrait photography of local folks. The Nimoys were cool, lots of fun, but I’m sure I speak for us both when I say that the Coyne show was jaw-dropping: large sculptures comprised primarily of silk flowers, wire, wax and… taxidermy. Photography wasn’t allowed as per the artist’s request, and anyway, I haven’t seen any photos of this stuff on line which begins to do it justice. I’ll just say that if you’re within driving distance of North Adams, Massachusetts, you’d do well to check it out.

Equally impressive (to me, at least,) were the black and white photo studies she supposedly drew her inspiration from, though I failed to see the connection. They’re all evocative of a mix of dark emotions and celebration, compelling and surreal. I’ll be back to see them again.

Mass MoCA is built into an old factory complex, and the forms and voids of the space are themselves interesting , from the Quarter-Furlong Gallery to more “private” spaces:

That’s a shot from Elliot, my preferred indoor/architectural lens, as is this one, of Susan receiving The Light from Tobias Putrih’s installation, Hoosac 2010, an ethereal fishing line apparition inspired by the grave and ponderous Hoosac Tunnel:

I took other photos that day, but this one is my favorite. It’s like an expression of the potential I see in that lady.

Anyway, visit Mass MoCA if you can, or watch for shows by these artists in your area; they’re spectacular!

Yeah, I know, it’s August. But I’ve been holding onto this one, ruminatin’ over whether to share it or not. Something about the atmosphere on this particular night created a strange margin on this otherwise crisp moon: